Using Microsoft PowerPoint to create quizzes and scenarios

The humble PowerPoint presentation has the potential to be a dynamic tool for scenario-based learning.

You might consider using PowerPoint if…

You would like to build on your existing knowledge of using PowerPoint.

You would like to create a resource that can be used in a Lecture AND as a revision material that can be shared via the VLE (e.g. studentcentral).

You would like to ask students to create scenarios and you would like to provide an accessible tool without a steep learning curve.

You would like to ask groups of students to create scenarios collaboratively; with OneDrive collaboration tools students can collaboratively edit a PowerPoint presentation.

You would like to start with a familiar tool and then transfer what you (or your students) create to a more sophisticated tool such as H5P (PowerPoint is a good way to create images as the background for interactivity!).

So the key thing would be for students to create their questions, duplicating the slides where needed and then to shuffle the slides by dragging and dropping the order in the left-hand carousel (part of the ‘Normal’ view in PowerPoint) prior to use for quizzing.

If you would like to learn more about how the interactions work then take a look at the Animations tab and look at the Animation Pane.

Each answer has three interactions:

Clicking on an answer triggers a button-like animation.

Followed by the change in colour from blue to either green or red-ish based on whether the answer is correct or incorrect.

Followed by the reveal or either a tick or a cross based on whether the answer is correct or incorrect. It is essential to include a visual indicator like this for accessibility reasons as we cannot rely on colour alone to indicate the status of a question in cases of colour-blindness where it may be harder to differentiate between the two colours.